For the better part of the last 20 years, this noble elephant named Kabu had been forced to slave away in chains – but now she’s finally free. And just as her body bears the scars of decades of mistreatment, her eyes are now shimmering with signs of hope.
Kabu’s story is an all too common one for working elephants in the forests of Southeast Asia, who are exposed to unimaginable suffering and abuse. Despite a past injury that left one of her front limbs painfully misshapen, she was continually kept in shackles and made to haul heavy logs up and down the mountainside for years on end.
Thankfully, that sad era in this elephant’s life has come to a close.
This week Lek Chailert, founder of the Elephant Nature Park sanctuary in Thailand, traveled to secure Kabu’s release into retirement. It was likely there that a caring person first saw the full extent of the elephant’s crippling injury and heard her tragic story.
Not only had Kabu been made to endure physical torment, she was made to suffer mentally as well. During her time in the field where she worked, the elephant had given birth to two offspring – one of whom was sold to a tourist camp, and the other who died by accident during a brutal “training crush” at the hands of her captors.
Still, through the heartbreak, she persisted long enough to be saved.